On Apr 29, 10:48*am, "kirk.stant" wrote:
On Apr 27, 11:51*am, jsbrake wrote:

Kirk
(who once logged a .3 flight in a F-4 that wasn't an IFE - and it
included the 5 minutes of taxi time!)

Okay, there's got to be a story in that! *Pardon my lack of acronym-
sense, but what is "IFE" ? *(I'm thinking something Failure of
Engine).

-John
(who once crashed a simulated CF-100)

Short War Story:

Clark AB, Philippines, mid 80s. *Squadron was in the middle of a
sortie surge - *flying a lot of 4-ship 1.5 hour sorties back to back,
simulating wartime conditions. My pilot and I got to our jet and it
wasn't ready for some reason. *So the rest of the flight took off on
their scheduled time while we waited for maintenance to fix our jet,
hoping to get airborne in time to get a short sortie in before the
mandatory "land-by" time (needed to get the jets ready for the next
scheduled takeoff time...). *Bottom line, jet finally gets fixed,
about 30 minutes before it had to be back in the chocks for the next
crew. *We told this to the squadron, suggesting that it would be
difficult to get started, systems checked, taxi to the active (a long
way on Clark AB), fly, land, taxi in, etc and still get a useful
sortie out of it. *But we were told GO!, so we did. *Flew exactly 12
minutes, mostly in min AB with the speed brakes out and dumping gas to
get the fuel down to a reasonable landing weight, did basically a big
looping pattern flight, and taxied back to our spot on the ramp on
time for the jet to be prepared for the next sortie. *The crew chief,
not expecting us back for an hour or so, thought we had aborted prior
to taking off - until he saw that the drag chute had been deployed -
The look on his face was priceless!

So, we logged a .3 (12 minutes takeoff to landing plus 5 minutes taxi
time - AF standard), and got royally chewed out by the Ops Officer for
flying a really dumb sortie. *Our excuse of "But we asked and you told
us to fly!" didn't hack it.

It was worth it, though!

Kirk
66

Have a shot of the Blue Kool-Aid and say "The Air Force Made me do
it!"